A million sermons and a million peace talk-fests cannot heal the smarting wounds in the robbed toiler’s breast; cannot pull the fangs of the capitalists from the flesh of the toilers, _as long as capitalism lasts_. Organized eloquence can not stop a cannon ball or persuade the rulers to resign. Under capitalism, as under slavery and serfdom, the employers are in a position _down at the industrial foundations of society_ to legally filch their livings from the working class—thus:—the capitalists privately own and privately control the means of production—the things the workers must use in getting a living. Like leeches the capitalist class are thus fastened to the very foundations of society. Here at the industrial foundations of society the industrial blood of society, wealth, is produced. And here are the leeches; and here they are in absolute control of the industrial blood of society. And it is natural, entirely natural, that here, in such position with such opportunity, they should, like leeches, suck this industrial blood, that is, behave like parasites. The capitalists—with society arranged in this manner—are indeed in position to rob the world wholesale, in position to hold up all the weary producers on all the earth. This organized, legalized hold-up and the resistance to this hold-up—this is war, _the_ war. The policeman, the militiaman, the cossack and the soldier are all always ready to rush upon the world’s stage to serve. To serve whom? In all the conflicts due to class-labor forms of society, the ruling class, as already indicated, have always a heavy social fist, a social weapon—an _armed guard_, such as militia, heavy police forces, and standing armies to extend the robbery and to protect the industrial ruling class in their unjust, unsocial position of legalized robbers of the working class. All talk, all hope, all prayer, for peace and quiet and harmony are idle as long as society is unjustly organized—that is, unsocially organized, down at its very foundations, one part of society being in the position of industrial masters, the other part of society being in the position of industrial dependents. The _yawning chasm_ in society thus created between the two warring classes—_can never be bridged with wishes, hopes and prayers, nor by peace conferences dominated by profit-stuffed masters and their well-fed intellectual serfs who dare not admit the fundamental cause of war_.[312] THUS IT BECOMES CLEAR WHAT THE FUTURE HAS FOR THE WORKING CLASS—WHILE CAPITALISM LASTS: